Hungary in the news, week of 5/11/18

In this new series published every Friday, Index in English will present you with a selection of the week's most relevant articles concerning Hungary from the world's leading news sites.

This week,

The Independent reported on European Council president Donald Tusk indirectly warning Viktor Orbán at the European People's Party's Helsinki congress. The politician addressed the crowd saying:

"Let me be absolutely clear: if you are against the rule of law and independent judiciary, you are not a Christian Democrat. If you don't like the free press and the NGOs, if you tolerate xenophobia, homophobia, nationalism, and antisemitism, you are not a Christian Democrat."

Politico.eu published a summary of the corruption case connected to the Prime Minister's son-in-law, in which Hungarian authorities dropped the investigation in the absence of a crime, as we also reported on Wednesday.

Reuters wrote about the Government's proposed legislation on Hungary's administrative courts that was posted on the Hungarian Parliament's website on Tuesday. If the Parliament passes the new law, it would give the Justice Minister control over the budget of the administrative court system and official authority over the presidents of the regional administrative courts. The proposal would also enable the Justice Minister to veto judge nominations.

The New York Times gave an insight into the Hungarian media landscape in their opinion piece featuring interviews with Hungarian journalists and took a look at some of the ways Viktor Orbán's system is building a government-friendly media empire sucking away all the air from the remaining independent press.

In a similar piece, The Huffington Post warned about how a country can slide towards "single party control and the silencing of dissent" bringing Hungary up as the deterring example and introducing the CEU-case in detail amongst other recent developments.

Finally, The Guardian reported that Labour MPs in the UK are demanding the removal of Sir Roger Scruton, chair of a UK government housing commission. The reason is Scruton's anti-semitic 2014 lecture, in which he claimed - amongst others - that the Jewish intelligentsia of Budapest is a branch of the extensive George Soros Empire.